A Kiss, A Dance & A Diamond. Helen Lacey

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СКАЧАТЬ had been in her family for over forty years, since her grandfather had started the place a decade after he’d arrived in Cedar River. Back then, he’d planned on making a fortune mining silver, but instead Guido and Josephine Radici had turned their hands to doing what they did best—cooking the most authentic Italian cuisine this side of the Black Hills. And it was a family business in the truest sense of the word. Her father, Salvatore, had learned the business from his father and continued on alone after her mother’s death a few years earlier. Her late brother Gino had learned from their dad. Although she missed her mother, Nicola was glad her mom hadn’t had to endure Gino’s passing. It was bad enough watching her father slowly deteriorate through his grief at the loss of his beloved son, along with a series of minor strokes. And since her older brother Vince had moved to San Francisco years ago, now there was just her...trying to cobble together some sense of normalcy for Gino’s two sons.

      But it wasn’t easy. With Marco’s emotional withdrawal and Johnny’s penchant for getting into trouble, she had her hands full. Both boys grieved in their own way, but it was Marco who really concerned her. He suffered from night terrors and had developed a severe fear of water. Although neither of the boys were with their parents at the time of the accident, the fact they were killed while sailing had profoundly affected Marco, and now he refused to go near water except for a quick shower at bath time. He’d always loved fishing but now resorted to hooking plastic toys from a bucket in the backyard.

      Once they were back home, Nicola parked the car, grabbed her tote and ushered the boys from the back seat. The house was where the boys had always lived—Gino and Miranda’s home, which they’d bought when they got married. It was a few minutes out of town, on a wide, tree-lined street, with a swing set in the backyard and a porch out front. After her brother’s death, Nicola had quickly packed up her life in San Francisco and moved in, trying to keep the boys’ normal routine as smooth as possible—soccer on Saturdays, joining a couple of other parents in a carpool for school pick-up twice a week, family night on a Friday with a movie and popcorn in the rooms behind the restaurant. She even did her best to pack the same kind of lunches that their mother had each morning.

      Her friend Annie Jamison was a nanny to three children, and she’d counselled Nicola to maintain as much of their old routine as possible to encourage emotional stability in the wake of their grief and loss. So she did. Normality was the key.

      Even though, some days, she felt as though every moment was an uphill battle.

      And tonight, she discovered about an hour later, was becoming one of those battles.

      Johnny wanted to stay up late to play a computer game, and Marco refused to go to bed and was holed up in his room, hiding in the corner of his closet, rejecting her requests to come out even when she relented and offered him the gelato he’d asked for earlier.

      “Please come out,” she pleaded, standing by the closet door, knowing she could wrestle him out of the small space, but she didn’t want to upset him any more than he already was.

      Yeah...an uphill battle just about covered it.

      “No,” he wailed. “You don’t care what happens to me.”

      Nicola hung on to patience and remained by the door. “Of course I do. Please, Marco...it’s nearly bedtime. You have to get up for school in the morning.”

      “I’m not going back to that stupid school!”

      She sucked in a long breath. “Marco, please—”

      “Everyone’s hates me. And my hand hurts,” he wailed. “No one is nice to me. Not you. Not Johnny. No one except that doctor.”

      Except that doctor.

      Nicola’s breath stilled in her chest. Kieran. She tried to ignore the way her pulse started to beat wildly. “Well, he’s not here. He’s at the hospital, and you don’t need to be there now. But I’m here, and I’d really like to talk to you. So, can you come out, and we’ll have some gelato and spend some time together...okay?”

      Silence. The deafening kind. She heard movement and thought she’d made progress when he spoke again. “You could call him. Doctors come to people’s houses, too.”

      Nicola hung on to her patience and took a deep breath. “I can’t do that.”

      She heard him huff. “You never do anything I want. Only what Johnny wants.”

      The pain in his voice was unmistakable. The boys had once been close, but over the past few months she’d seen the divide between them become wider.

      The guilt landed squarely on her shoulders. She was a lousy parent. And she clearly needed help.

      Nicola left the room and headed downstairs. She got to the living room and discovered the overhead light bulb had blown. Great...that’s all I need. She loathed heights and had no intention of bothering her neighbor for a ladder, even though she was sure the elderly man would help if she asked. Besides, her independent streak made her resist asking anyone for assistance. But as she got to the kitchen, filled the kettle and sat down at the table, Nicola admitted that she did need help. Right now.

      A minute later she was calling the hospital, feeling foolish through to her bones. He’d probably left for the night, and she hoped he had. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t want to ask for his help. But within seconds she was connected to the ER, and a moment later she heard his deep voice.

      “O’Sullivan,” he said as a greeting.

      She clenched the phone and sucked in a sharp breath. “Kieran...”

      Silence stretched like brittle elastic, and then he spoke again. “Nicola? Is that you?”

      She was shocked that he’d recognized her voice. “I... I...”

      “Is everything okay?”

      Her belly did a foolish loop-the-loop at the concern in his voice, and then words just blurted out. “Kieran... I need you.”

       Chapter Two

      Twenty minutes later Kieran was pulling up outside a two-story home on Grove Street.

      I need you...

      It had been fifteen years since he’d heard Nicola say anything so provocative.

      He glanced at the address scribbled on a crumpled note on the passenger seat and saw that he had the right place. It was ironic that she lived only a couple of streets from the apartment he’d rented. The large Victorian he’d moved into five days earlier had been divided into several apartments, and his was on the second floor. His sister-in-law, Kayla, had been the previous tenant so it had been an easy sublet, taking over the payments and dealing with the landlord. And he liked the place well enough. There was one bedroom, a combined kitchen and dining room, and a spacious living room—plenty of room for the few boxes and sparse assortment of furniture he’d brought with him from Sioux Falls.

      He got out, locked the Jeep and headed for the house. The porch light flicked on the moment he closed the white picket gate, and within seconds the front door opened. Once he was up the three steps and on the porch, Nicola was there, holding the screen door open and inviting him inside.

      “Thank you for coming,” she said quickly as СКАЧАТЬ